There has been an unprecedented growth in advanced cyber threats, with cyber attacks increasing by 14% in 2013, a new Cisco report warned.
According to Cisco 2014 Annual Security Report, vulnerabilities in computer systems and the risk from cyber hackers are at their highest level since 2000.
The report also added the abilities of global organisations to monitor and secure networks have been mainly hit by a global shortage of security professionals with the right skills.
Cisco Threat Response Intelligence and Development senior vice president and chief security officer, John Stewart, said that although the Cisco Annual Security Report paints a grim picture of the current state of cyber security, there is hope for restoring trust in people, institutions and technologies – and that starts with empowering defenders with real-world knowledge about expanding attack surfaces.
"To truly protect against all of these possible attacks, defenders must understand the attackers, their motivations and their methods – before, during and after an attack," Stewart said.
Among all the sectors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, agriculture, mining and electronics reported a 600% rise in the malware targeted at them, while energy, oil and gas industries witnessed a 400% rise in attempts to breach security.
During the year, cyber criminal efforts to hack retailers and wholesalers increased by 100%.
The report noted: "Simple attacks that caused containable damage have given way to organised cybercrime operations that are sophisticated, well-funded, and capable of significant economic and reputational damage to public and private sector victims.
"Cybercriminals have learnt that harnessing the power of Internet infrastructure yields far more benefits than simply gaining access to individual computers or devices," report said.
"These infrastructure-scale attacks seek to gain access to strategically positioned web hosting servers, name servers and data centres — with the goal of proliferating attacks across legions of individual assets served by these resources.
"By targeting Internet infrastructure, attackers undermine trust in everything connected to or enabled by it."
In addition, Cisco reported that 96% of networks communicated traffic to hijacked servers, with multipurpose Trojans being considered as the most often encountered web-delivered malware.
Java still remained the most exploited programming language, while 99% of all mobile malware was targeted at Android devices, the report noted.
